Our First Day Teaching

Saturday
Saturday was a preparation day. We spent time going over lesson plans and gathering some things for the classes. There are four levels. Jackson & Micah are teaching the B1, or lowest beginning level, Claire is teaching the B2 level by herself, Kim is teaching the Intermediate level by herself, and Luke and I are teaching the advanced level.

At 6:00 PM we went over to a couple's house two buildings away for a cookout. They are full time workers here. Both are finishing Arabic language study. Arabic is a difficult language to learn, so those who want to work here in Arabic devote their first two years of full time work just to learning the language.

We ate with them and two other couples who work here full time. A Jordanian, MaHer, also joined us. It was late, like after 10:00, before we returned to the apartment. These times are very good for our team because we are getting a very good feel for what it is like to live and work here in Jordan. I also had a discussion with MaHer (This is not a misspelling. The "H" means you heavily aspirate the "h" sound. Arabic has two different "h" sounds!) When he found out I am a physicist, it led to many questions about the Big Bang, string theory, and the like. He is a translator, so he asked questions occasionally about fine points of English grammar and idiom.

Sunday
The first day teaching was a learning experience for all of us. All of us except Kim went through our prepared lesson plans much faster than we anticipated. One of the activities was "Tell about a bad day you had." We anticipated funny stories about a bad day. We got many of those humorous stories, but also some tragic stories. A couple of the groups switched to "Good day" stories.

I think all of us had good conversations in the evening, either before class or during the 20 minute break. Kim had one student tell about his best day as "The day I became a good Muslim". She told us this story during our nighttime debrief. It made us realize that some of these stories can be very similar to our own faith stories. After class the students left very quickly. One car stopped and picked up schwerma for everyone. We met back at the apt. and debriefed for about an hour.

Today we will spend more time planning. We have a better feel for how the classes will go.

Thank for remembering us!
Grace and peace,

Michael